Drink-drivers should always be taken off the road

I once heard that a good definition of “mixed emotions” was when a man discovered that his annoying mother-in-law drove his brand new Mercedes Benz right off the face of a cliff.

I bet Gaylynne Cannonier is suffering from a bad case of mixed emotions; relieved that she only had to pay a $1,500 fine for her DUI and absolutely miserable when she considers that she might have been responsible for an unthinkable tragedy. 

It probably doesn’t help that she embarrassed her brother, Premier Craig Cannonier.  

While the bloggers are having a field day that former OBA candidate Ms Cannonier ‘got off easy’ by not having her licence revoked for a year, I have a pretty good idea that she isn’t celebrating. 

This is a town where people like to eat you alive just for sport. Only in Bermuda would newspapers and bloggers hail the accomplishments of people with only tangential connections to the island but treat one of their own countrymen like disposable waste.

Senior Magistrate Archie Warner used his legal discretion and issued a fine to Ms Cannonier. Was this a bad decision? I think that we can all agree that yes, it was a very bad decision. Anyone caught driving under the influence should at the very least lose their licence for a year, regardless of position or job requirement. It shouldn’t matter if you are nice, if you attend church regularly or if you are kind to children and animals.  Driving under the influence is illegal and supremely unfair to the rest of us.  Gaylynne Cannonier is an intelligent woman and she put herself and others at risk the moment she got behind the wheel of her car.  She knows better.

What about you? What do you do when you are leaving a restaurant or a party?  Do you call a taxi? 

One day last summer, at approximately three in the morning, I got one of those dreaded phone calls every parent prays won’t be for them. 

With phone in hand I leapt out of bed and somehow managed to dress while taking in the details.  My two daughters had been out celebrating a birthday with friends that evening and were waiting for their taxi to take them home.  

In the interest of full disclosure, they and their friends were drinking and would have been well over the legal limit. 

As their guests piled in to one taxi, my oldest daughter stepped out from the sidewalk to hail another taxi for their group. As she waved to the driver across the street, she was hit by an oncoming car and was thrown to the sidewalk.  She is lucky to be alive.  The driver’s windscreen was shattered and side mirror was left dangling from the car. My daughter sustained a broken leg and a major case of road rash.  It could have been a lot worse and every day I am grateful that she only had to endure crutches and a lot of inconvenience. 

This is what I thought about during the several weeks when I changed her bandages, took her to doctor’s appointments, appointments for multiple X-rays and afterwards for physical therapy; I thought about head injuries, maiming, paralyses and I’m embarrassed to admit it, her beautiful face. What if she had to spend the rest of her life disfigured? How would she cope, how would her life be different? How would I be able to help her?

Here’s what the driver thought about: who was going to pay for her windscreen and side mirror? In spite of the fact that this driver caused bodily harm she was not breathalyzed nor held for questioning.  The reason? Bermuda laws, according to a senior police officer, do not require mandatory breathalyzer tests despite the fact that a pedestrian was hit by a car.  I guess you could call this another example of when “discretion” from an officer of the court isn’t doing our community any favours.

Seeing my daughter appeared to be only suffering from surface wounds, the officers didn’t think about head injuries, internal bleeding or broken bones. I do hope that in the future these young officers will remember that they didn’t go to medical school and that someone isn’t “fine” until they’ve been examined by a doctor.

As my daughter laid on the pavement waiting for an ambulance, witnesses reported that the driver spent most of her time screaming at the attending officers about the condition of her car but not once did she stop to ask if my daughter was injured or in pain. 

I keep the police report in my wallet and someday if this same driver is involved in another “collision” — as the police described the incident — I will bring my report back to police headquarters as a reminder that they should have used their discretion the right way.

I will never know if the young woman who hit my daughter had been drinking or had abstained that evening and had acted responsibly. Accidents do happen and they can be caused by nice people.  One doesn’t have to be a student of physics to understand that a 3,500 pound object moving at a pretty good speed can do a lot of damage to a five foot, four inch young woman. 

But here’s what I think about when that evening revisits me on sleepless nights. I think about how police officers, and now a magistrate, aren’t given the tools, the laws to adequately deal with an islandwide problem.

Gaylynne Cannonier was driving under the influence, was detained by police and she pleaded guilty to the offence. 

She had legal representation and to a certain extent, she dodged a bullet. 

While many want to politicize her light fine and argue over whether by being the Premier’s sister she got off too easily, I wish they would focus instead on the real issue — which is getting the laws straight so that no officer of the court is put in the position of being able to use their discretion. 

Change the law. Don’t drink and drive. Call a taxi — and spare all of us from future heartbreak.